Asher Keddie opens up about fame after Offspring, ‘mortifying’ beauty trends
Offspring star Asher Keddie has revealed the enormous pressure she felt as Australia’s golden girl, and what she continues to find “really irritating”.
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Actor Asher Keddie has opened up about the enormous pressure she felt after being labelled the golden girl of Australian television and what she continues to find “really irritating”.
Speaking with former prime minister Julia Gillard on A Podcast Of One’s Own, the Offspring star said it felt like she was “hoisted onto a pedestal” after winning the Gold Logie for her role as the adored obstetrician Nina Proudman in 2013.
“The expectation was very high – or I felt it was – and … I thought, ‘I’m not sure. I thought I wanted this but do I?’ I felt like my freedom had kind of been thwarted,” she told Ms Gillard.
“I wasn’t comfortable because I know who I am and I’m not a golden girl. I have as many foibles, challenges, shortcomings and struggles as anybody else. I didn’t like the picture that was painted of me.”
Keddie has forged an impressive career, punctuated by her roles as media boss Ita Buttrose in Paper Giants and single mum Alexandra in The Cry. But she remains an intensely private person who struggled with fame early on.
“I think I was very much a late bloomer,” she said.
“Although I’d spent many years of dreaming of being applauded for my work and recognised … once it happened I didn’t quite know how to sit in it comfortably. I almost lamented it for a little while.”
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Keddie said it was “difficult” and “an unusual feeling” when people started to recognise her on the street, but it had now become “just a part of life”.
“I’m more comfortable with it now I think because with age and experience my personal confidence has grown,” she said.
Addressing the toxic celebrity culture in today’s Instagram-driven world, Keddie said there was one beauty trend that she found mortifying.
“I’m mortified when I see 20-year-old girls changing the shapes of their faces or plumping their lips out or their cheeks … It’s become about wanting to look like someone else, needing to have a different appearance to the one that you’re born with,” she said.
“People are wanting to achieve physical perfection … and I just didn’t grow up like that.”
Keddie, whose seven-year stint as Proudman made her an on-screen fashion icon, said she had a “very sophisticated, really stylish mother” as well as fashionable aunts and a polished grandmother, so she “liked to look great and feel great”.
“But I don’t want to look like someone else,” she said.
“I personally like the way I look as I age. I like the way my friends look, my girlfriends. I like the way my sister does, my mother.”
The 45-year-old said it made her “extremely uncomfortable” when her appearance was pored over by the press.
“On top of recognition for your work on a show, as a female you’re also being looked at and being judged by the way you dress, the way you do your hair, the way you stand on a red carpet, the way you put yourself out there, your image,” she said.
“I think it is different for women and certainly that was an element that I was extremely uncomfortable about.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love fashion, I love dressing up, I love those moments where I do feel quite extroverted. But I’m not particularly interested in feeling judged, like most people, and for my appearance to be discussed on a level that I find really irritating.”
The talented and insightful Asher Keddie joins me for the next episode of A Podcast of One’s Own. We discuss gender and leadership in the screen industry, confidence, and being in the public eye.
— Julia Gillard (@JuliaGillard) February 20, 2020
Listen here: https://t.co/llwTPxejFz pic.twitter.com/FuSlkOsH43
Keddie’s latest project is the dramatic miniseries The Hunting on SBS, about a group of teens who get caught up in a sexting scandal.
Originally published as Asher Keddie opens up about fame after Offspring, ‘mortifying’ beauty trends